Action Update

Consumer Voice Director of Public Policy & Advocacy Robyn Grant was quoted in a recent article in USA Today about the VA's hidden nursing home ratings. The agency tracks quality statistics on nursing homes but has been keeping them from the public. Nearly half of VA nursing homes received the agency's lowest ranking as of December 2017. Some of the ratings were made public last week after the VA received questions from the Globe and USA Today. The agency has monitored care at its nursing facilities through quality indiciators, unannounced inspections and star rankings, but until now, all of these quality measures have been hidden from the public. Federal regulations require private nursing homes to disclose data, and the federal government uses the data to calculate quality measures where are posted to a federal website. These regulations do not apply to the VA.

The VA has “got this whole sort of parallel world out there that’s hidden,” said Robyn Grant, director of public policy and advocacy at the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care. “I still can’t get over that this information is not available to people who are looking for a veteran’s home. That’s just unacceptable.”

The Consumer Voice envisions a world in which all consumers of long-term care, services and supports are treated with respect and dignity and have a wide range of affordable, quality options across all settings.